


There Was a Boy

by Shinigami_Hollow



Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Alternate Character Interpretation, Gen, M/M, Pre-Slash, at all really, au-ish, like none, not much dialogue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-17
Updated: 2013-03-17
Packaged: 2017-12-05 13:08:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/723641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shinigami_Hollow/pseuds/Shinigami_Hollow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack Frost wasn't born, he was made.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Jack Frost wasn’t born, he was made; sculpted from freshly fallen snow and shards of ice, the true blue water formed his eyes, the wind was his voice. 

He rose from Burgess Lake one night, on a flurry of wind, and there he took his first breath. He saw a lonely Sheppard’s crook and took it and formed it and made it his own, and he made everything in his path a thing of beauty. He flew and soared and flitted from place to place, but no one saw him, no one could see him, he was no one. 

Jack Frost wasn’t born, and tangible forms had no meaning to him. Sometimes he was the wind, soaring above all and never heard and never seen (but sometimes, when the wind was a ferocious gale and the winds buffeted and shrieked if you listened closely enough, you would swear you heard the sound of harsh gasping breaths, and sobbing tears).

Jack Frost wasn’t born, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t feel.

~ ~ ~

  
There is a tale, that a boy drowned in Burgess Lake, sank to the bottom never to be seen or heard from again, never to be unearthed from his watery coffin (he’d saved a little girl some said, his little sister others whispered, a daughter some shrieked. And then there were those, so long ago, who whispered dark secrets behind a grieving family’s backs, about ‘What was he even doing on that ice anyway,’ and that maybe, just maybe that he’d wanted to die, and, ‘Wasn’t that a shame?’ tsk tsk. Jack never liked listening to those people overmuch.).

Some days Jack wondered if he was that boy. If maybe he’d had a family, loved ones once, if maybe he’d been alive. Most days he couldn’t find the will or the energy to care.

~ ~ ~

Jack hadn’t meant for ’68 to even happen, hadn’t meant for it to get that far maybe, some days he’s not really sure (he was just so lonely).

But when the Easter Bunny picked him up (and seriously a giant rabbit what even), and shook him by the back of his neck like he was holding onto scruff, and shouted obscenities into his face, Jack found he didn’t mind overmuch.

After all, any touch is better than none at all.

~ ~ ~

Jack loved children, loved their sweet smiling faces, and how their laughs were like sunshine on snow, bright and oh so warm. (Loved how they could believe in anything really, anything at all, with just the smallest push)

He loved making children happy, made them snow days and made sure the ice over the lake was always hard enough so no one would fall in (never again), and always tried to cheer up the unhappy ones with a few special snowflakes and a fresh gust of wind.

He wanted to protect them from all the horrible things the world would one day, and for some had, thrown at them. (Sometimes he wishes that he could be them, and go home to smiling parents and a warm house and freshly baked cookies, sometimes he wants it so badly he aches.)

He’s wanted all of this, almost as much as he wanted to be real.

~ ~ ~  
He saves her, he saves Baby Tooth (just like he saved his sister three hundred years ago, maybe please yes!), and he’s slowly proving himself to these people who have never wanted him before.

“We all had lives before we became Guardians Jack.” Tooth says, and Jack has hope for the first time in three hundred years. 

They gather the Teeth, and they rush and they race and they have fun (fun, so much fun) and then Sandy dies, and Jack sees white. They have a memorial, but Jack’s heart aches too much to join in.

Jack’s always been a screw up in this life, always been there at the wrong time, and doing the wrongs things, and even the Moon won’t talk to him, not like he talks to everyone who isn’t Jack. He wonders if his past life was the same.

~ ~ ~

The Guardians don’t know how to handle children, not anymore, but Jack, Jack is an expert at this; he’s been around kids so long.

A little application of his own special brand of magic, and before they know it Bunny is carting little Sophie around and treating her like she’s the most precious thing in the world (Jack remembers Bunny’s face, his smile, and wishes someone would look at him like that, just once), he sees how much the Guardians adore her, and thinks maybe, just this once, he’s done something right. But she gets tired, so he takes her home, brushing off the other’s worries.

Then Jack is stupid (so so very stupid) because someone knows his name, someone knows his name! And he follows the voice, and he sees the teeth, and he’s distracted, so distracted by searching and Pitch and his shadow tricks, that before he knows it Easter is ruined (that’s all he’s good for after all, ruining everything, never good enough to be seenbelievedheard, to do something right) and he deserves their scorn, as much as he hates them for it. 

~ ~ ~ 

He flies to Antarctica, and for the first time in three hundred years he actually wants to be alone, wants to be able to rave an rant and shout at the heavens, the Moon, ‘Why did you put me here, why?’ but of course that doesn’t happen.

Pitch happens, and he pleads with Jack, tries to sway him and woo him over to his side. His voice is as soft as freshly fallen snow and Jack so badly wants to believe him, wants someone to want him, to need him, to confirm he’s real. But Pitch can make no such promises, and when Jack denies him his voice becomes a sibilant hiss, the consonants and vowels all threading together and tying themselves about Jack’s neck like a hangman’s noose. 

And Pitch has Baby Tooth and maybe he can save her, maybe if her saves her they’ll forgive him and the he’ll be someone again, he won’t be just Jack Frost but Jack Frost the Guardian, their Jack Frost, so he makes the trade, and then Pitch breaks his staff. 

It hurts, but it doesn’t hurt worse than being so alone for three hundred years, and it doesn’t hurt more than never knowing who he is, if he was someone once (nothing no one, no good, never wanted, not a real boy never never never), and he’s thrown back, thrown down, into the pit. He hits his jaw on the way down, there’s blood in his mouth (or maybe it’s water, maybe he doesn’t bleed maybe he’s gone mad), on his teeth, and something feels loose in his mouth (Tooth is going to be so mad). 

He doesn’t have a memory box, he doesn’t have any memories, he never lost any baby teeth (he’s not the boy he was never the boy because he’s not real he’s never been real) because Jack Frost wasn’t born, he was made. But as Baby Tooth pulls the loose tooth from his mouth, and she shows him all the new memories he’s made with the Guardians (his family, his family) and all the fun they’ve had he decides that while he may not have a past he can have a future, and new memories and hopes and dream of his own, with these people he could come to love, and that, that is worth fighting for.

~ ~ ~

So they fight Pitch, they protect the children, the children protect them, and Jack discovers his center (and if the moon seems to shine brighter in that moment than it ever has before Jack won’t admit a thing), and they win.

Jack is made a Guardian, he has believers, and he’ll never have to be alone again. He’s the happiest he’s been since he rose from his lake on a cold gust of wind and moonbeams, and maybe, he thinks, maybe you don’t have to be a real boy to have a family, maybe family is what you make it.

~ ~ ~

  
And if some years later, as they all gather as close as they can around the fireplace in Santoff Clausen after a meeting for cookies and eggnog and just to bask in the warmth of family, and Jack sees Bunny smile at him from across the way, he’ll wonder if maybe you have to be a real boy to love too. But as Bunny rises to move the short distance between them and takes Jack’s hand in his with a small squeeze, Jack figures that maybe being real is overrated anyway, and slowly squeezes back.


	2. From Father to Son

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Man in the Moon creates Jack, he gives him life, and tries to do his best by him, sometimes your best is not enough.

The Man in the Moon creates Jack, he creates Jack because the world needs him, needs what he will be, what he will become.

He creates Jack because a boy drowned today, a boy drowned saving his little sister and he could do nothing but stand and watch and weep.

He forms Jack, out of ice and snow and cold cold waters (because the **boy** deserves to rest forevermore), and imbues him with hope and dreams, wonder and life, and worries that he has not done enough, that Jack cannot be, never will be whole. He worries, but he cannot do much for his newest creation, his child in all but blood, for creating has made him weak, and he must rest for a long long time. 

He hears the boy, (whenever he is a boy for Jack is as flighty and finicky as the wind, and so is his shape, his very essence, never able to stay in one place, in one form), sporadically, in between naps and dreams, as if through a thick fog, layers upon layers of muslin have been pulled over his ears, and he wishes he could do more for the lost child he created, but sleep beckons, and he must rest (and he weeps, for the child he feels has failed).

But eventually he does awake fully and whole, if for no other reason than that he must, for an evil beckons upon the world, and the children are not safe (the children are never safe, not really, he wishes he could do more, wants to do more why why why can he not).

So he tells his Guardians, his oldest friends his wishes, and wait for them to guide his child, guide him in life, to home, and family, and love.

But his oldest friends have become haughty, and complacent, and so they all learn harsh lessons and face trials that threaten to destroy the core of them (as all must after a time). For what is life without its own lessons?

They fight and they squabble and they blame his child (his lost child, still searching, searching for a home, and he is as angry as he is sad) but they also re-learn humility, and compassion, to look and live for the little things, they learn once more of love.

He shines down upon their battle, their battle against a once great General, and he glows with pride when his ice child finds his purpose, his way home.

His child is made a Guardian (as he should have been all along, as was his birthright) and he watches a family be made. 

He watches down upon them from time to time, watches their progress, tries to ensure they do not fall back into bad habits (seclusion, and self-interest, an overabundance of pride), and is happy for a time. He sees his little frost and Bunnymund grow closer, and is wary, and hopeful in turns. They have both been hurt and scarred so badly before, if in different ways, and he does not wish for them to clash and crash and burn. Yet both are so similar at times it makes him laugh, and their tempers are all encompassing things, equal yet opposites, burning hot and cold in equal measure. 

But he needs not worry, for they learn to balance one another out, and try to curb hurtful barbs and words (though they still fight, often and loud and without mercy, but it is more a release of temper than a desire to hurt), and they are a soothing balm to each other’s souls. 

He is the Man in the Moon, and he too lives and learns and makes mistakes, he tries his best but does not always succeed. However for the first time in a long time he is happy, and he is proud, and he too believes, he believes in Jack Frost, in the power of forging your own path, and making your own destiny, he believes, and he is content. 

That night he hears his child whisper a lullaby to the night sky, and he smiles.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What even is this I am so sorry what am I writing?! (And I totally don't hate the Guardians ok, I love and believe in them but ~~they were kind of jerks in the movie at points ok~~ sometimes love is cruel ok?!)
> 
> Then I was watching the movie again and the scene after Jack sees his memories again pops up and he whispers to the moon about how that’s why he was chosen and I had a lot of feels ok? (about Manny and Jack and just feels ok, good feels)
> 
> And I have never read the books, so all my info about their canon is from hearsay and the internet, internet hearsay really, and the wiki. (Which isn't much to be honest) 
> 
> Con-crit please! *headdesk*

**Author's Note:**

> My first foray into this fandom and I write angst. *headdesk*
> 
> I didn’t write this to undermine Jack’s death or anything (because no, seriously my heart breaks), just because I had to get it out and I’m so sorry if the POV is screwy or something. And yeah there's like, no dialogue. Sorry bout that.
> 
> First thing I've written in a LONG time too, so con-crit is encouraged and welcome.
> 
> Also un-betaed like WHOA.


End file.
